Readers' comments

"Some thoughtfully arranged for atheists to look after their pets," this surprised me. As a member of the younger generation (read: supporter of gay marriage) I was not completely sure that I'd get to cut the line for the rapture. I also live "in sin" with my boyfriend. As 21 May drew closer I told him that he and I might still be here, but we'll know it happened because our perfect Pug will be gone. If anyone deserves to avoid the Apocalypse it's clearly our soulful, 4 legged, companions.

Right you are: TE's moderation appears to have a big hubris problem. It's not just that sometimes it's plainly silly. It's the refusal to give explanations when so asked by baffled victims. This is even worse than being irrational: it's dusty manners. But what can you do, asks aidan clarke. Well, I would suggest, if a thing cannot be done properly, then surely it's not worth doing at all. If rational and considerate moderation turns out to be impractical, just forget about it.

@CA-Oxonian, there is a major disconnect between what we are able to appreciate and what we are able to predict. Moreover, it is not a disconnect that any nervous system had to handle during evolutionary progression, so it is perhaps reasonable that our brain struggles to adequately respond to it, now that it has arisen. As a result, whether religious or otherwise, we all need to resist a strong urge to invent answers for things we are fundamentally uncertain about. Just my $0.02...

@Mad Hatter, I would be very surprised if comment moderation was actually a carefully considered process - there are too many comments here to carefully consider all of them. My guess, if a comment gets two-or-three complaints, it will get deleted pretty much automatically. Not very fair, but what can you do.

I have to be careful here. My previous comment was somewhat critical of god nuts.

I guess the people at the Economist mag are suffering from the same hubris the minister is....

And why was it removed?

Is it because I think all religious people are nuts – the way they think I will go to hell?

I have asked them to tell me what specific phrase offended some poor soul?

It is much less over the top that much of the verbal war-fare that goes on.

It merely represents an opinion.

1. Many of my fellow Americans are nuts - fact
2. Rather a lot of religious fanatics are nuts – fact
3. An enormous number of supposedly upright religious people are amongst the most venal, intolerant, self centred, and generally nasty individuals I have met or seen in action - fact
4. The Bible is made out of paper – and paper is what I wipe my derriere with. - fact

I really want to know how, from their ivory tower, they see this as a problem and find it breaks their mercurial rules?

I did notice quite a few people agreed. Of course, some people agreed with Hitler, and that didn’t make them right, but this one annoys me. Normally I can’t be bother to reply to their inane removals.

@CA-Oxonian
I think your point is a valid one, but it has to do with a culture which is overly permissive of illogic. In the U.S. (and elsewhere) superstition is not only widely practiced, but activly encouraged by our government. This is the fallacy of majority rule - because the majority holds views which are contrary to logic and reason, they cannot be trusted to weed out such beliefs from what should be pragmatic concerns like governance.
I sincerely do believe that this tide of ignorance is waning - although it is usually 10 steps forward and 9 back. Look to the end of the article, where even the conservative christian community must admit that their culture war of "defence of marriage" is going to loose in the long run due to shifting demographics. Throw in some massive, shameful abuse of power like the institutionalized child rape of the Catholic Church, and you might be able to "imagine no religion" here inside a couple generations, though it isn't as easy as advertized.

Robert is correct, virtually every major religion has it's own myth about the end of the world.

Well, at least for the Western religions that stress faith in God (Islam,Christianity, Judaism and their antecedents). From my admittedly limited understanding, Eastern religions that stress faith on finding the right path are not so focused on the end of days nonsense.

Religion has been around a long time and only recently has humanity gotten out of the superstitious age. It will take some generations but I eventually see religion dying.

The idea of an Apocalypse in the Christian tradition comes from a literal reading of the Book of Revelation (primarily). Given that in The US most people claim to be 'born again', I wouldnt be surprised to find most believe in the Rapture. The issue is when and where and on this front Camping is in a camp much more isolated. The origin of the Apocalypse or a rapture type myth is not unique to Christians however. Islam, Judaism and other Persian inspired religions all have them. They are atypical for religions which have a temporal setting, where beliefs have evolved to cope with diaspora, displacement, and dispossession in territorial terms. Its like a final coming home story, and the happy ever after (and ultimate vindication for hanging on to ones beliefs). No wandering journey myth would be complete without it! something even hollywood has learnt.

"The ramblings of an old charlatan" is more the part where Camping said he found a way to calculate the day. Why any devoted christian would give his claim any more value than their brother-in-law? Specially since he already got it wrong in the 90s.

It's easy to mock the intellectually challenged (and sometimes, admittedly, quite satisfying). But perhaps it's more helpful to try to understand why so many people would take seriously the ramblings of an old charlatan. What is it about human nature that makes us so often easy prey for those who assault us with bizarre assertions and unsubstantiated "visions"? Why are we again and again and again so credulous? All it takes is for someone to proclaim that their god talks to them and thousands - or millions - line up obediently to surrender whatever vestiges of common sense they once had. This is a universal phenomenon dating back as far as we can see, at all times and in all cultures. It is the root of religious belief and has caused untold harm across the millennia. It's past time that we started to take the phenomenon very seriously indeed and commenced investigation of why we keep stepping on the metaphorical rake of susperstitious credulity.